Amid claims that Michael Gove and his closest advisers have been using private emails to discuss government business, first revealed by The Huffington Post UK in August, we take a look at five private emails that should never have been sent.
A "very good day" to bury bad news was the phrase used to describe September 11 in a leaked email sent by Labour spin doctor Jo Moore, 38. With the media covering the rising death toll in New York and fires blazing in the wreckage of the twin towers, Moore saw an opportunity for slipping out some negative figures: "It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors' expenses?"
Moore issued an apology, which Downing Street said was enough for her to keep her job working for transport secretary Stephen Byers. However, as news of the email spread, wide condemnation by senior figures led to her resignation. Having learned her lesson, she now works as a teacher.
An aide to Gordon Brown, Damian McBride's attempt to smear the Tories backfired when his emails were leaked to political blogger Guido Fawkes. The seedy smears were imaginatively sordid, with plans to accuse David Cameron of suffering from, as the Sun euphemistically put it, an "embarrassing medical condition".
Lads' chat left the locker room when a flirtatious email referring to what sounded like an oral sex session, gushing ‘Yours was yum’ went viral, as lawyer Bradley Chait, the flattered recipient of the email from Claire Swires, couldn’t resist sending it on to a few pals. They decided to spread the good news of Chait’s prowess. Winging its way from City law firm Norton and Rose, soon it was all over London, and all over the papers.
Poor Joseph Dobbie had his declarations of love posted all over the internet and the papers when it seemed it wasn’t just the recipient of his email who found his intimate desires cringe-worthy.
A long letter confessed to the object of his affection that “your smile is the freshest of my special memories” after their first encounter.
And throwing caution to the wind he requested a date: "I listen to my heart and remember that I should live my life as an exultation and revel in the opportunity to try".
Somewhere, someday, Joseph Dobbie will make some girl very happy. Unfortunately it just wasn’t ‘Dear Kate’.
Meteorologists fell foul of technology, in what was dubbed 'ClimateGate' when leaked emails revealed the scientists fiddled statistics to manipulate global warming research results.
The incriminating emails made their maneuvering explicit, saying: "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years... to hide the decline." and "Oh, so it's not about the planet getting warmer, but rather is a convenient means of advancing an agenda that has already been pre-determined? An inquiry subsequently cleared the scientists of any dishonest data tampering.